Psalm Chapter 1

Psalm 1: The Tree and the Chaff

The Psalter opens not with a prayer or a hymn but with a choice — and, more quietly, with a picture. Here is a man, the psalmist says, who has sunk his life down into the law of the Lord like a tree sinks its roots toward water, and the result is that when the drought comes (and the drought always comes) he does not even notice. His leaf does not wither. Over against him stands another figure, and the contrast is almost cruel in its lightness: chaff, which the wind driveth away. Not punished, not argued with — simply blown. This is the great sorting of the Psalms, offered before a single prayer has been prayed: you may be a tree or you may be chaff, and the difference is not a matter of effort or cleverness but of where you have chosen to put your roots. Meditation day and night, says the psalmist, as though the law were not a burden to carry but a river to drink from. The tree does not strain to bear fruit; it simply stands where the water is.

00:00 Blessed Is the Man
00:15 A Tree Planted by the Rivers
00:32 The Chaff the Wind Drives Away
00:48 The Way of the Righteous